The present invention relates to electronic postage meters and more particularly to electronic postage meters operating under control of a program and including non-volatile memories (NVMs), of the type such as disclosed in the aforementioned related patent applications.
Known electronic postage meters employing firmware such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,301,507, issued on Nov. 17, 1981, and assigned to Pitney Bowes, Inc. of Stamford, Conn. are programmed via ROMs to undergo a certain sequence of operations. In dealing with a single postal system such as that in the United States, one set of software is programmed into the meter. However, when an electronic postage meter is used with a number of different postal systems, i.e., internationally, where the requirements of the postal systems of various countries vary widely, a number of different individual programs or software packages are required to accommodate the variations between the individual countries. Such a multiplicity of software packages greatly increases the cost of the meter. The aforementioned related copending patent application, entitled, CONTROLLING FIRMWARE BRANCH POINTS IN AN ELECTRONIC POSTAGE METER, discloses one way in which a number of individually tailored software packages may be reduced by setting certain data bits in non-volatile memory (NVM) to control firmware branch points. Further, aforementioned related copending patent application, entitled, MODIFYING A FIRMWARE VARIABLE IN AN ELECTRONIC POSTAGE METER, discloses a further technique for reducing the number of individually tailored software packages by setting certain data bits in NVM to modify a firmware variable in ROM.